But no fact can be mentioned more striking, and more capable of having gratified the pride of the Clergy, at the time, than that of Henry II. King of England. This Prince having, by a few hasty angry words he uttered on a certain occasion, been the cause of the assassination of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, expressed afterwards the greatest sorrow for his imprudence: but neither the Priests nor the Nation would take his word on that account: they only gave credit to the reality of his repentance, when he had submitted to the all-purifying trial of a flagellation; and in order the more completely to remove all doubts in that respect, he went through it publicly. The following is the account which Matthew Paris, a Writer who lived about those times, has given of the transaction. ‘But as the slaughterers of this glorious Martyr had taken an opportunity to slay him from a few words the King had uttered rather imprudently, the King asked absolution from the Bishops who were present at the ceremony, and subjecting his bare skin to the discipline of rods, received four or five stripes from every one of the religious persons, a multitude of whom had assembled[96].’ [Illustration: (end of chapter mark)] FOOTNOTES: [95] Ἀφορισμοῦ τινὰ λύοντες, γυμνοῦσιν αὐτὸν ἕως ὀσφύος, καὶ μαστίζοντες ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ λώροις, ἀπολύουσιν ὡς συγκεχωρημένον ἐντευθεν. [96] ... _Carnemque suam nudam disciplinæ virgarum supponens, à singulis viris religiosis, quorum multitudo magna convenerat, ictus ternos vel quinos accepit._ Among the instances of Sovereigns who have been publickly flagellated, may also be reckoned that of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, whose Sovereignty extended over a very considerable part of the South of France. Having given protection in his dominions to the Sect called the _Albigenses_, Innocent III. the most haughty Pope that ever filled the Papal Chair, published a Croisade against him; his dominions were in consequence seized, nor could he succeed to have them restored to him, before he had submitted to receive discipline from the hands of the Legate of the Pope, who stripped him naked to the waist, at the door of the Church, and drove him up to the altar in that situation, all the while beating him with rods.